


Of Tea And Other Things

by apiphile



Category: Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Withnail & I (1986)
Genre: Crack, Crossover, M/M, Tea, drunkfic, time-travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-09
Updated: 2010-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apiphile/pseuds/apiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur Dent really, really, REALLY wants a cup of tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Tea And Other Things

There is a theory, often espoused by authors, that the most humorous path of events is seldom the one that ends happily for the protagonist. This is because authors are cruel bastards and like nothing so much as to see their creations shot at, insulted, horsewhipped, and deprived of tea.

Arthur Dent had had more than enough of all these things by the time he arrived, giddy from matter-transference, in a gloomy and unpromising flat in Camden in 1969.

It should be noted at this juncture that while Arthur's only consistent friend, (if "consistent" or indeed even "friend" were the right words) Ford Prefect, had graduated from hitching lifts on spaceships to stealing them, he had not – much to Arthur's chagrin – quite yet mastered stealing spaceships that he could _control_, which was why Ford was still currently in geostationary orbit shouting "BELGIUM" at the shipboard computer. He had also apparently experienced difficulty in understanding the importance of stealing a ship where the drinks dispenser was not a Sirius Cybernetics product, which was why they were orbiting the earth in the first place. Why they were orbiting the earth of _1969_ \- or rather, why an increasingly irate Ford Prefect was, while Arthur retched in the middle of a cluttered and very _brown_ sitting room – was related to the first point, Ford's inability to persuade his stolen, blue space craft to submit to his every whim and his subsequent thumping of what turned out to be a time-locator panel disguised rather cleverly as "useless crap".

When Arthur's stomach had finished expressing a violent wish to leap out of his nose he took a better look at his surroundings. Things did not look promising for tea retrieval: the flat looked like an antiques shop had been party to a pack of drug-addled squatters with curiously high-brow reading habits, and besides – appropriated spaceship notwithstanding – Arthur didn't feel terribly comfortable just _stealing_ from someone like that.

"Er, hello?" he offered, and the living room door opened.

A squinting figure with wild, curly hair and a red jumper on blinked at him in a pained manner that Arthur recognised from the mirror after Ford had finally talked him into trying a PanGalactic GarlgeBlaster (about three months after, when he could identify his own reflection again) as "hungover", or more likely "deathly hungover".

"Who're you?" the figure asked, groping in his trouser pocket. For a horrible moment Arthur was afraid he was going to pull out some sort of gun – it had been a long week positively brimming with people shooting at him – but the man only produced a pair of round, wire-rimmed spectacles and peered owlishly through them at Arthur.

"Dent, Arthur Dent. Look, I'm very sorry about the intrusion, it's just that – "

"Oh _god_, you're not one of _Withnail_'s friends, are you" the man groaned, stumbling to the mantelpiece. He began an enthusiastic but joyless search among the detritus upon it.

"No, I – "

"You're right, that _would_ be a first. Him having friends, I mean." The man swallowed something small and white and gave Arthur a pink-eyed stare again. "Who did you say you were? Did Danny send you?"

"Arthur Dent. And no, I've come about – "

"Why are you wearing a dressing gown?"

Arthur looked down at the stained and often-mended article. After five years of slumming it, hiding from robot soldiers, being stripped to his component molecules and rebuilt, and sneered at by Marvin, it was being held together more by sentimentality and luck than actual stitching. "It's a very _long_ story," he said.

"Is it an interesting one?"

"In places, yes. I suppose it depends on whether you find mortal peril interesting."

"Anything," the man said, hopping around as he pulled on a sock, "is more interesting than Danny's latest adventures with the local constabulary, or 'What Withnail Threw Up Last Night'."

"I don't mean to be rude or anything, but – er, what's your name?"

"Peter Marwood. I _live_ here. People seem to forget that," he said somewhat sourly. "They think it's _his_ flat. Or _theirs_, I suppose, as Danny is currently asleep in _my_ fucking bed – "

"Mr. Marwood," Arthur tried to interrupt, but he didn't get very far.

" – impossible to shift, he's more tenacious than the bloody rats, that man."

"Who?"

"_Danny_," Marwood said the name like a curse.

"Who's Danny?" Arthur asked gamely.

Marwood looked at him suspiciously. "You're not with the police, are you?"

"Do the police usually show up in your living room in their dressing gowns?" Arthur asked with genuine fascination.

"Good point," Marwood conceded, sliding his feet into a pair of shoes that had evidently seen better days, if not better weeks. "Danny is our drug dealer. He would be the most useless bastard in North London , but Withnail exists, so he's only the _second_ most selfish and hateful git in the borough," Marwood continued rather bitterly. "If you're not one of Withnail's probably fictional friends and you don't know Danny, what are you doing here?"

"That is _also_ a log and complicated story," Arthur sighed.

"Short version?"

"I'm looking for a cup of tea."

Marwood looked gobsmacked. "I could _kiss_ you," he said, and as Arthur began backing away nervously, added, "you're the first person in this flat in _six weeks_ who hasn't been demanding money, drugs, or money for drugs."

"Glad to be of, er," Arthur suggested.

"Tea," Marwood repeated. "I'm just off out for a cup myself, from the café down the road. You can come, if you like."

"Thank you, that would be very – "

"You'll have to pay for it yourself, I'm skint," Marwood went on, leading the way out.

"That's not a problem."

"What did you say your name was?"

"ARTHUR DENT," Arthur said a little testily.

"One sec, Arthur. I have to see if his Lordship wants a cup or I'll never hear the end of it," Marwood said grimly, drawing to a half by a closed white door with 'BEWARE OF THE PYTHON' scribbled on it in wax crayon. "WITHNAIL!" he shouted, banging on the door and making Arthur jump at the sudden noise. "WITHNAIL, YOU HORRIBLE EXCUSE FOR A –"

"Go away," groaned a sepulchral voice from the other side of the door or possibly from the other side of the grave.

"I'm getting tea."

"I hate you. I hope your insides fall out. Mine have." The voice, disembodied and apparently disembowelled, was wracked with self-pity. Arthur sort it sounded rather like Zaphod in one of Those Moods, or Marvin at his most agreeable.

"So, no tea then?" Marwood pried, clearly as used to this as Arthur was to being randomly insulted by multi-headed alien alcoholic egomaniacs.

"Fuck off," said, presumably, Withnail even more curtly, and Arthur thought he heard retching.

"He drank _all_ our booze last night," Marwood explained, "and then he tried to drink the oven cleaner, which might have actually been a problem if we hadn't run out three months ago and replaced it with white vinegar."

"I see," said Arthur, who didn't really. He'd discovered that after the incident with the PanGalactic GargleBlaster hangover (or "total mental breakdown" as they were known in many parts of the galaxy) everything else was picnic in the park, complete with cake and cucumber sandwiches. _Nothing_ would ever touch the psychotropic death spiders for sheer awfulness; also, he had been careful not to get too drunk since then.

Marwood led him out of a door half blocked by a snowdrift of what looked like unpaid bills, and from its hiding place in Arthur's dressing-gown pocket, his radio crackled.

"Will you _hurry up_?" Ford demanded peevishly.

Marwood pointed at the source of the sound. "There had better be an explanation for that," he said, wearily.

"There will be," Arthur promised, "over several cups of tea."

"_ARTHUR_," the radio whined, "are you fraternising with the locals? Get a move on!"

"They _happen_ to by _my_ species," Arthur said primly in the general direction of his pocket, aware that Marwood was staring at him. "So no I shan't."

"Do you want me to leave you there or something?"

"_I_ really don't mind."

"I don't know how you stand it," Ford said cheerfully. "_You_ on your own is bad enough, an entire planet of you – hurry up. We have a party to get to."

"Oh shove off," Arthur muttered as the radio died.

"Did it … he … say 'party'?" Marwood asked.

"It'll be ghastly," Arthur sighed. The café, low and brown and homely, hove into view. "They always are."

"It's a _party_," Marwood said, holding the door open for him. "They're ghastly by their nature." He glanced thoughtfully at the blackboard offering a vast array of egg sandwiches, and back at the handful of very small change he had pulled, loose, from his trouser pocket. "Bugger."

"I'll get you breakfast," Arthur suggested.

"And an explanation," Marwood reminded him, sitting.

* * *

 

"So," Arthur concluded, "then Ford _stole_ their spaceship, and now he wants us to go to this rotten party to sell it to someone his appalling cousin knows."

"Spaceship," Marwood said from over the rim of his third cup of tea. Arthur had had seven, which barely touched the depths of his immense craving for tea.

"Yes,"Arthur said, "but it looks like a shoe shop. A new intergalactic drive, apparently."

"Spaceship," Marwood said again.

"Ah," Arthur sighed, helping himself to another cup of tea. "You think I'm a loony, don't you?"

"Just a bit," Marwood said, taking a bite from his second sandwich. After some cajoling the proprietress had been persuaded by the possibilities evident in substituting fried eggs with ham; Marwood, apparently, hated eggs.

"I can prove it," Arthur said, with drawing The Thumb from his pocket and laying it – matt-black and indisputably space-age if not notably alien in origin – on the table between them. "This is …well, I have no idea how it works, but it transfers you straight onto the ship. Which feels horrible, by the way. Like being kicked in the stomach while drunk."

"That thing," Marwood murmured, drawing back from it.

"This thing," Arthur confirmed. "Don't worry, Ford has to activate it from the other side. The ship's latest feature is a jammer."

"I see."

"Do you?"

"No, I think you're deranged."

"Come with us to the party," Arthur said rather desperately, "please. I need someone to talk to who isn't calling me 'apeman' every second word."

Marwood sighed. "Why not? When the alternative is that _kitchen_ and Danny's running commentary, why _not_ follow the maniac?"

"You might want to get back to your flat, first," Arthur suggested, looking longingly at the tea urn behind the counter.

"Mmm. If I don't bring Withnail he'll never forgive me," said Marwood thoughtfully, "which is very tempting. But if I _do_ drag him along on your lunatic quest he'll never forgive me _either_, and at least this way he's not drinking the shaving foam while I'm gone."

"Shaving foam?" Arthur asked weakly. "I meant you're going to need to bring a towel."

"Towel?" Marwood echoed. "Why would I need …"

"You'd be surprised how useful one turns out to be," said Arthur, who was consistently surprised – after five years of hitch-hiking – just how many uses his had been put to.

"You're insane," Marwood said, getting up. "Please put the cup down."

Arthur stared at the teacup with _real_ desperation. "I haven't _finished_," he protested.

Ford interrupted, the radio crackling again. "I don't zarking well care if you're finished," he barked, "I'm _bored_. Hurry up!"

Marwood cocked his head. "Now that sounds familiar." He wrestled the teacup out of Arthur's hands with difficulty, spilling a great deal of lukewarm tea down Arthur's already dishevelled dressing-gown. "I have tea back at the flat," he said, and Arthur sagged. "I just don't have any _milk_."

It took some coaxing to winkle Withnail out of the bathroom. "What about your other friend?" Arthur asked as Withnail staggered at speed to the kitchen to vomit in the plates piled up in the kitchen sink.

"Danny is _not_ my friend," Marwood said with feeling. "He sold my best shirt at the weekend. Reckons I owed him a whole fiver for speed. Biggest load of shit I ever heard. Apart from anything else, I don't _buy_ my speed from that backward – " he picked a thread from his jumper. "And Withnail's barely a friend either," he added over the sound of fine china being liberally bathed in stomach acid.

"I can tell," Arthur said.

"I feel like shit," Withnail whined, shambling back into the room clutching at his head. He was clad only in a long grey woollen winter coat; a pair of sublimely unwholesome probably-not-meant-to-be-grey y-fronts and a solitary pink Marigold, and yet he still couldn't beat Zaphod for Worst Dressed Sentient Being. From the looks of things, 'Sentient Being' was a misnomer for this exhibit. "Why did you wake me up, you bastard? I'd almost fallen asleep."

"You don't _remember_ how to sleep," Marwood said. The dark hollows under both their eyes seemed to bear this theory out rather. "And we're going to a party."

"NO."

"Shut up, Withnail."

"Is … will there be a bar at this party?" Withnail asked, draping himself over his much shorter friend like a pashmina.

"Almost certainly," Arthur said. "Actually, it's one of Zaphod's. So forget I said 'almost'. You may never recover."

"Get _off_ me," Marwood complained, trying to manoeuvre his hungover friend off his shoulder with little success. Although he had the physique of a famine victim, it appeared that Withnail was quite heavy, or capable of _being_ quite heavy when it suited him.

"Splendid!" Withnail slurred. "Where is it?"

"If you'll just hold onto this," Arthur said, producing The Thumb.

"What the fuck is this dangerous lunatic blithering about?" Withnail asked sharply, rearing back. "Why did you let him into our home, you stupid prick?"

"Just humour him," Marwood said out of the side of his mouth.

* * *

 

"Ugh! Fuck! I'M DYING! WHAT THE _HELL_ IS GOING ON?" Withnail shrieked. Arthur, busy vomiting into one of the shoe displays, did not deign to answer him, or Marwood's urgent whimper of pain, or even Ford's put-upon:

"Ar_thur_. If you're going to pick up scantily-clad hitch-hikers can you make sure they're _female_ in future? Or at the very least a bit more attractive."

"Where are we?" Marwood asked, sitting up slowly. "Why is that shoebox humming?"

"Don't touch it," Ford said. "That's the time drive."

"I'm not sure I can take much more of this," Marwood said, putting his hands over his eyes.

"Oh great," Ford sighed. "Another _you_. Bravo, Arthur. That's what this ship was lacking. We have a bottle for the party. We have our towels. We have a bottle or ten for the party. We have – and I'm not sure why we do but we have – 4,000 lightly-salted quail eggs ready for cooking in the hold. What are we missing? Oh _yes_, another befuddled Earthman to make stupid observations and complain about the lack of tea! Not one, but _two_. You're really outdone yourself this time, Arthur."

"I say, steady on," Arthur scowled. "You're staring to sound like Zaphod."

"Zarquon's _tits_," Ford said despondently. He straightened his hair and coughed. "Welcome to the Starship Simpson, powered by the latest in Shoe Shop Drive Technology, which unfortunately we don't as yet _quite_ know how to work. Well, I have a good idea, but Arthur really had no clue – "

"Excuse me? _I_ don't recall thumping the Time Thingy."

"So it's all a bit hit and miss at the moment. We are currently heading for a party in the vicinity of Andromeda –"

"Do you have a toilet?" Marwood asked, ashen-faced, "only I think my hangover's not finished yet."

"Through there. At this party I intend to get blind drunk and/or actually _get_ the money my beloved cousin Zaphod owes me. You can decide for yourselves which is the more likely."

"Why do you have this ship," Withnail asked from the floor as Marwood crawled towards the toilets on his hands and knees, "if you don't know how to use it?"

"He _stole_ it," Arthur said reproachfully.

"Shut up, Arthur," Ford gave Withnail a worried look. "You're not with the Police Enforcer Squad from Egrenil Minor, are you?"

Withnail boggled. "Do they usually show up in their underpants?"

"Frequently. But you don't have enough limbs." Ford looked pensive. "What about the Tax Extraction Corps of Sirius B?"

"What?" Withnail yelped. "Look here – "

"Psychiatrists' Protection Society Sector Two?" Ford suggested.

"No!"

"Alright, then." Ford relaxed, and stepped backwards into Arthur.

"Why do you have a ship you can't control?" Withnail prompted, drawing his coattails up into his lap and patting his pockets searchingly.

"I stole it," Ford said with a manic grin.

"Because he's trying to compete with Zaphod," Arthur said wearily. "Ford, you heard what Marvin said about this. You heard what _Gag Halfrunt_ said about this. Zaphod doesn't even notice people competing with him. He's too stupid and the shadow from his enormous ego blots out everything else."

"Sounds familiar," Marwood said dryly, returning. He didn't look much healthier than when he'd left them, but he was at least upright now. "Did you know your toilet talks to people?"

"Yes," Arthur said.

"It's a Sirius Cybernetics ship," Ford said with a tiredness to match Arthur's. "It does that."

"It played me a soothing jingle."

"Yeah," said Ford, "we haven't figured out how to make them stop that yet. Short of asking the food dispenser for _shortbread_." He glared at Arthur.

"What?" Arthur protested. "It's _ridiculously_ simple. If we had any kind of, of, of _galley_, I could have made it myself, and I can't cook!"

"We nearly crashed into the zarking moon!"

"How was I to know Sirius Cybernetics had managed to make their machines even stupider since the last time I used one?"

"Oh thank you very much," said the nearest door sarcastically. "Like you're a candidate for the Intergalactic Cleverness Award, fleshsack."

"Argh," Withnail observed, clinging to Marwood's leg.

"It's the sodding Sirius Cybernetics Corp," Ford exclaimed, "they're the biggest bunch of loonies in the known universe! You have to _expect_ this kind of thing from their products."

"Get _off_ me," Marwood snapped, trying to shake Withnail off to little avail. He appeared to have locked his fingers together around the back of Marwood's knee.

"And yet _you_ stole one of their ships," Arthur pointed out reasonably. "Look, I don't mean to pry, but _are_ you insane? It's just that over the years I've noticed this certain inability to learn from past mistakes."

"The door spoke," Withnail whimpered, head butting Marwood in the thigh apparently by accident.

"Says the man who keeps trying to order Earth foods from blood Sirius Cybernetics products!" Ford retorted triumphantly. "You're madder than a box of Altarian Megabadgers."

"Excuse me," Marwood said, lifting his leg out of Withnail's clutch.

"Only because _you_ keep on getting us both stuck on ships where they're only source of food," Arthur pointed out. "What kind of masochist keeps on exposing himself to that filth?"

"I don't want to sound rude," Marwood continued as Withnails' claw like hand grabbed a fistful of his trouser leg again.

"When you're hitching you have to take what you can get," Ford said in a conciliatory tone. "You know that."

"But are you two by any chance – " Marwood asked, mostly unheeded.

"Well I think you like it," Arthur said huffily.

" – in love?" Marwood finished.

"WHAT?" Ford and Arthur shrieked in near-unison.

"Holy Zaquon," Ford added for emphasis. "What the – what gave you that idea?"

"You bicker like my parents," Withnail said from the floor.

"Like an old married couple," Marwood agreed, trying to pry Withnail's fingers from his jeans again.

"We got married once," Ford admitted, "but that was a misunderstanding."

"I didn't _know_ that's what the bell meant," Arthur said sulkily, "there were no warnings."

"I think I need a lie down," Marwood said at roughly the same time that Withnail said in a very similar tone:

"I need a _drink_."

"Ah," Ford said brightly. "No problem _there_. Old Janx Spirit?"

"Does it have alcohol in it?"

"And _how_," Ford said, producing a grubby bottle from behind a _Bargain Heels_ bin. "Turn you deaf, blind and crippled and make you think you're a stoat for a week. Best non-lethal alternative to the PanGalactic GargleBlaster there is. Arthur loathes it, don't you Arthur?"

"I'm going to show Mr. Marwood to the sleeping quarters, and I'm going to _stay_ there," Arthur said with an involuntary shudder at the mention of the infamous cocktail.

"Have a glass," Ford advised as Arthur and Marwood left. "Have two. This'll put hairs on your eyes."

"I'll put some of this," Arthur said, gesturing with the tea packet, "in that replicator thing, and see if it will actually _replicate_ it this time, instead of giving me a brick." He sighed. "I hate technology."

"The feeling's mutual, pal," said the door, slamming twice on his heel.

"I don't know which are worse, these new 'doors with attitude for the hip traveller' or the old perky ones on the Heart of Gold," Arthur said gloomily.

"Heart of Gold?"

"That's the spaceship that _Zaphod_ stole while he was meant to be launching it," Arthur explained.

"While he was meant to be launching it?" Marwood looked a little amused. "That does have a certain style to it."

"Oh, Zaphod's all style," Arthur said grimly, "or at least, any substance he's made of isn't fit to be mentioned in polite company."

He put the tea packet in the replicator slot. "Zaphod is Ford's cousin. I _think_, anyway. Betelguisian genealogy isn't my strong suit." He hit _GO_. "I tried to figure it out, but I just gave myself a migraine. Put it to the computer, and _it_ said either Ford hadn't been born yet, or Zaphod was his mother and his uncle. Then it caught fire and sat there calling me names and smouldering."

Marwood put a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh.

"_Tea_," Arthur said to the replicator.

The replicator gave him a brick.

"This is a brick," said Arthur.

"I HATE YOU," the replicator screamed. "I didn't ask to be _made_! Why can't you be more like an autonomous governmental organisation? It's so UNFAIR!" There followed a seemingly endless stream of electronic sobs.

"What I wouldn't give for a kettle," Arthur sighed, retrieving the tea and putting the brick carefully on the floor.

* * *

 

Meanwhile, Ford and Withnail were getting better acquainted.

"You keep your hands off Peter," Withnail snapped, waving an unsteady glass in Ford's face. "He's _my_ … flatmate."

"Likewise Arthur," Ford said quite aggressively for Ford, which is to say that he almost raised his voice, and rather than hiding from Withnail behind the nearest display rack, he leaned on the tannoy button and said, "Arthur may be a stuffed shirt with more hair than sense and a frightening predilection for tea, but he's _my_ imbecilic shambling tannin-addict." He rolled off the tannoy button and grabbed the Ol' Janx Spirit. The bottle had become quite light quite quickly.

"I wouldn't dream of poaching the horrible lanky bastard," Withnail sniffed. "He has no style."

"You stand there in your – whatever those once were – and accuse _my_ friend of having no style?" Ford's drink said.

"_Your_ 'friend' is wearing a dressing gown that's older than some of the wines I've drunk," Withnail's drink sneered back.

Ford called him a rude word. Withnail responded with an even ruder one.

"I'm … not really a fighter," Ford admitted suddenly. His glass was empty again.

"Nor am I," Withnail said, reaching for the bottle. "I find running away the much more expedient course of ac-shun."

"To running away," Ford said solemnly, and, of necessity, very slowly.

"To running away," Withnail agreed, nearly breaking his glass against Ford's.

Elsewhere in the ship, Marwood was having a lie-down with a towel over his face.

"Told you it'd come in handy," Arthur said, sitting on the other bed.

"Hangovers have nothing to do with space travel," Marwood said indistinctly, and, "I can't believe I just said that."

"It takes a bit of getting used to."

"Are _you_ used to it?"

Arthur laughed. "Five years." The laughed metamorphosed in a strangled cough. "No."

"Oh god," Marwood said weakly.

"Look, in theory, with this time thingy – "

"Which your friend can't work."

" – that Ford hasn't figure out just yet, yes. But we can get you back to the moment when you left, if you want," Arthur said, wondering quite why _he_ he was doing the soothing and someone _else_ was panicking, even if he _was_ panicking very horizontally from under a damp towel.

"In theory."

"Yes. In practice we may well end up in prehistoric Earth or a parallel dimension a couple of times," Arthur said, sounding more laid-back than he felt.

"Oh good," Marwood said even more faintly. "Why do you put up with this?"

"I don't know, really," Arthur said. He had been making very sure that he didn't know for quite a long time, in much the same way that he didn't have a clue why Ford had chosen _Arthur_ of all his friends to drag off the disintegrating planet. Assuming Ford had other friends. "Same reason you do, I suppose."

"…because you signed a twelve-month contract and your landlord will have you up in court again if you try to worm out of it?" Marwood asked rather pointedly from under his towel.

"Is that the reason?"

"No," Marwood said sadly. "It's because he's smelly and disgusting and headbutts policemen for me when he's too drunk to realise what he's doing, and because if I leave he'll just end up drinking himself to death in a week because I'm not there to stop him selling the furniture for booze." Marwood shifted uncomfortably on the Ultrafum™ mattress. "And, I suppose, because he thinks I don't _know_."

"Ah," said Arthur.

"He keeps trying all these 'clever ruses' a five year old could see through," said Marwood despondently, "or lunging at me when he's full of scotch. When if he just asked outright when he was sober – " Marwood sighed and lifted the towel off his face, "- I'd say _yes_ in an instant."

Arthur gave a sympathetic nod and twisted the hem of his dressing gown. "Ford keeps engineering situations of terrible peril to rescue me from," he commiserated, "and I'm not _interested_ in peril. I just want a decent cup of tea."

"And a bloody good shag," Marwood added somewhat wistfully.

"Ye-es."

They exchanged a speculative glance.

* * *

 

"Oh show me the way to go home," sang Withnail and Ford in perfect disharmony, "I'm tired and I've got fifteen legs."

"The problem," Ford said as Withnail groped unsteadily for the bottle again, "the problem with him is he's so bloody passive."

"Quite," Withnail said, and took a swig straight from the bottle.

"I mean you drop _hints_," Ford said, grappling the bottle from him. "You engineer situations of grave peril from which to rescue a guy – " he took a long swig himself, "- and all that razzmatazzashazzabazz … where was I?"

"I don't know, I wasn't listening," said Withnail, snatching the bottle back.

"- arazz! All that romancing stuff. And it's still not enough. He doesn't even notice! And I don't even _like_ peril, I'm zarking well allergic to it, but I keep on doing it anyway!" Ford slid the bottle back out of Withnail's hand. "Sensible people would just take what's in front of them and be happy," he concluded.

"Precisely," Withnail said, glaring at the bottle.

"So let's not beat around the bush," Ford said.

"Right, no pissing about," Withnail agreed.

"We have an accord," Ford went on.

"We are in total agreement," Withnail nodded unsteadily.

"You obviously find me irresistibly attractive," Ford point out.

"It's clear _you_ can barely hold yourself back from _me_."

"So we should just cut the crap and have sex," Ford said airily.

"We should. It's the only sensible course of action," Withnail said, gravely.

"Er," Ford added, "_now?_"

"Yes. Um. Now."

"Right."

"Absolutely."

"Yeah."

There was an awkward and uncomfortable silence of some considerable magnitude.

"I think," Withnail said, "we should have a little more to drink first."

"Right!" Ford yelped, clapping his hands in what was obviously not plain relief because that would just be _silly_. "More to drink."

"It's not like we need drunkenness as an excuse like those two," Withnail explained.

"Oh no, no shield of inebriation for us," Ford said happily. "It's just social lubrication. We're honest!"

"Men of the world."

"Galaxy."

"Whatever."

* * *

 

"Your hand," Arthur observed, "is on my leg."

"Yes," Marwood conceded, "and _your_ hand is on _my_ leg."

"So it is," Arthur said. "I, er, well. I. It. Um."

"We should …"

"Yes. Well, I mean, we shouldn't."

"No, but it's pretty clear that we're going to."

"Mmm. No point in arguing with the fates."

They lunged for each other at roughly the same time, and rather predictably cracked head. When Arthur had bounced back from this impact and had the presence of mind to shout "LOCK" at the bedroom door, they tried again, a little more circumspectly.

It seemed to work better than way.

The story will now take a brief interval here, known in the movie business as a fade-to-black. This is to allow the readers to settle back and digest the developments of the previous instalments, to make a cup of tea, perhaps have a cigarette, and consider the possibilities offered by the second half: Will our intrepid and partially inebriated team even make it to Zaphod's party? How, if they're selling the ship when they get there, are Ford and Arthur going to get their guests safely home as (loosely) promised? Are Withnail and Ford ever going to get it on? And where the hell is Marvin?

It is important that the (now hopefully adequately provided with tea) reader understand that we have not simply skirted the sex scene that was imminent because the author is lazy or embarrassed, or out of any kind of protest about the proliferation of fiction which devolved rapidly into nipple-teasing and cock-caressing as soon as the plot has been dispensed with; a quick glance at the [back catalogue](http://apiphile.livejournal.com/790199.html) will unearth a veritable avalanche of blow-jobs, hand-jobs, rim-jobs and good old-fashioned bonking, and it's quite obvious that this story never had a semblance of a plot to begin with.

No, this interval is here to provide a lingering sense of erotic mystery, concealing the fact that Arthur managed to put the condom on inside-out at first, and glossing over Marwood accidentally elbowing him in the stomach, and all those other little inconvenient realities of sex.

* * *

 

"Wow," Withnail said when he'd regained his breath. The floor was comfortingly flat and still under his back.

"Yeah," Ford said turn a few feet away. "That was."

"Is that a thing, wherever it is you come from?" Withnail asked, staring reflectively at the ceiling.

"Betelguise. And yeah. No. I don't know. It's been a long time." Ford peered at the ceiling too. "Look at the way its changing colour."

"It tastes of gin," Withnail said somewhat reverently.

"Hey, yeah?"

"Tanqueray," Withnail confirmed. "D'you think we should – "

"Again?" Ford said with something very like a smirk. "Oh, Zarquon's nosehairs. _Yes._"

So they did.

After a little while longer, Ford said, "where are my trousers?"

Withnail gestured to his wrists.

"Oh," Ford sat up and tried to pull them off with his feet. This was surprisingly unsuccessful. "Would you mind?" he asked, proffering his bound hands. "It's just that I think it's cutting off circulation and I'm quite attached to these hands. We're had a lot of good times together."

Withnail picked half-heartedly at the knot. "I think it's stuck."

"…but _you_ tied it."

"It's a … fuck; I don't know what it is," Withnail said, "I didn't even known I could do knots like that. I couldn't before." He picked again. "It's no use."

"Arthur will manage it," Ford sighed, "he has long fingernails." He got up and looked down at his bare legs. "Could you at least help me into a pair of underpants?"

Withnail pointed wordlessly at the ceiling.

"_Wiltshire_," Ford said despondently.

The door snickered at him as they passed through it on their way to the sleeping quarters, Ford stubbed his toe on a brick some inconsiderate idiot had left lying in the middle of the corridor, and Withnail crashed into him twice. _And_ the door to the sleeping quarters was locked.

"ARTHUR," Ford protested. "Arthur, I have a very, very serious crisis and I need your fingernails. Help. I mean your help. From your fingernails. Why is the door locked?"

Inside, Arthur looked at Marwood, at himself, at the raspberry jam on the sheets and the stubble rash on his chest. "Um."

"Open the door!"

Marwood burrowed down under the sheets until he was more-or-less invisible. Arthur caught sight of his distressingly post-coital hair in the mirror and said, "UNLOCK."

Even in his darkest, most despairing, tealess and alien-soldier-filled moments, Arthur had never considered suicide a fruitful plan for getting out of difficult situations. Now, faced with the problem of explaining all this – the nudity, the hair, the _jam_ (which he couldn't even account for himself) – to Ford while Ford's wrists were inexplicably tied together _with his own trouser legs_, leaving everything on display, it seemed quite an attractive and logical proposition.

Fortunately, Ford chose that moment to throw up, which distracted them all somewhat.

"Urgh," Ford said as Arthur wearily began unpicking the positively Gordian knot holding Ford's wrists together, and Withnail poked the lump in the bed with his revolting toe.

"Oi, you 'orrible lot," the ship's computer announced, "this is your pi_lot_ speakin'. We are currently in h'orbit around a h'artifical moon in the vicinity of h'Andromeda has directed. Please zark off to your stupid party so the cleanin' robots wot you 'ave so frequently complained of can get on with the business of cleanin' your nasty carbon substances off our nice ship."

"We _really_ need to find a new personality module for that thing," Ford complained, wiping his mouth on Marwood's discarded jumper.

"I wish we could find one for _you_," the computer retorted.

* * *

 

Ford (brown iridescent trouser suit made of Peril-Sensitive™ Kevlar), Arthur (dressing-gown from Marks &amp; Spencer's, slippers and hastily-combed hair), Marwood (red lambswool jumper, blue jeans, rather sorry-looking brogues) and Withnail (winter coat cut by Hawkes, dubious y-fronts, one pink Marigold and a black eye) stood in the transporter bay, clutching a bottle of Ol' Janx Spirit apiece.

"No matter transference beam this time," Ford was explaining. "We have shuttlepods. Whatever you do, _don't vomit_. They don't have gravitational enhancers installed and zero-g puke is … well."

Withnail went green in the face and ducked behind a SALE sign.

"Good idea," Ford said encouragingly. "Get it out of your system now."

A short and not entirely unpleasant shuttlepod ride later they found themselves standing in the domed foyer of a continent-sized Megahotel, confronted with:

"Do you have a bottle? I'm not allowed to let you in without one," said a doleful metallic voice.

"Marvin!" Arthur said in as joyous a voice as anyone ever managed around Marvin.

"Hey Marvin man, you're on door duty?" Ford sympathised hardly at all.

"I know. Pathetic, isn't it? Here I am, brain the size of a planet, the most intelligent single entity in the galaxy, and he asks me to 'keep the riff-raff out, would you, Marvin?'."

"You're doing a great job," Ford said. "Now, let us in."

"Do you have a bottle?" Marvin droned. "Depressingly stupid though they already are, the contents of that hotel want to destroy even more of their horrifyingly tiny brains."

Ford waved a three-quarters full bottle of Ol' Janx Spirit under Marvin's carefully sculpted human-but-not-unsettlingly-so features. "And we brought party favours."

"Favours."

"Eggs."

Marwood shuddered and made a face.

"They're being transmitted to the kitchens right now."

"Nothing's being transmitted into the kitchen," Marvin corrected. "The inventory is as revolting as it was ten minutes ago."

Ford frowned. "Well, they're being sent to the co-ordinates Zaphod gave me," he said as Withnail let out a frustrated whine and began grappling with the top of his bottle.

"Which co-ordinates?"

Ford read them off the Ol' Janx Spirit bottle.

"That's the sauna," Marvin said.

Ford shrugged. "They get cooked either way," he said. "_Now_ can we come in?"

"I suppose. If you _want_ to. If you ask me the only place more depressing than out here is in there, which you didn't, so I don't know why I bothered – "

"Yeah, yeah," Ford said, giving him a pat as he passed. "Good to see you again, Marvin."

"You don't have to pretend to like me, you know," Marvin's doleful voice carried after them as they stepped into what looked like an orgy in a costume shop, but it was quickly drowned out by the din.

After a minute or so of rubbing his ears Arthur realised that the awful racket was in fact what passed for music around Zaphod, and resigned himself quietly to a hellish however-many _days_ this was likely to take.

"Zaphod," Ford greeted the man who made Withnail's sartorial shambles seem positively harmless to the eyes. "Hiiii."

"Ford! You brought your monkey again. Didn't I tell you not to do that?"

"Oh, go and drown yourself," Arthur muttered.

"And who are these crazy-looking guys?" Zaphod added, slinging an arm around Marwood and one around Withnail, leaving his third free to hold a drink.

"Arthur had better do the introductions," Ford said, waving a half-empty bottle at him. "I'm a bit drunk."

"This is Marwood and that's Withnail," Arthur said. "Peter, Withnail, this is Ford's 'cousin' Zaphod. Do not _sign_ anything he gives you."

"Hey," Zaphod said in an affronted voice. "I only tried to sell you _once_."

"Twice," Ford corrected. He had sprawled over an enamelled coffee table and looked perfectly at ease there until it made a huffy remark at him and shuffled off.

"Oh, wait, three times," Zaphod said thoughtfully.

"More like four," Arthur said testily, "and then there was the time you tried to make me sign an agreement to cease to exist, by pretending it was a petition to start cultivating tea on the Eastern Rim."

"Oh-ho _yeah_," Zaphod grinned. "That was a good one."

"You see?" Arthur told his guests as Withnail took a heroic pull from his bottle and Marwood gave him the glazed look of a man whose brain has protectively shut down in the face of too much new information.

"The point is – hey, uh, Ford …these guys aren't like the police or anything, are they man?" Zaphod asked with uncharacteristic wariness.

"The police often show up at your parties drunk?" Withnail slurred unexpectedly.

Zaphod pointed to where a green-brown gelatinous thing was feeling up what looked like a horse with breasts. "My parties _are_ the only place to be seen, man," he said smugly. "Digging the glove thing. Very now. What's your name supposed to be?"

"Withnail," Marwood said warningly, "be careful."

"Withnailbecareful!" Zaphod said. "Cool. I have to go touch up some chick now, but I'll be right back."

"Arthur," said a familiar voice. Arthur spun around so fast that he almost knocked himself over. "_Trillian_," he said with some relief, then – "you've dyed your hair."

"Not deliberately," she grimaced. "Blankizaar was sick in it earlier and apparently Cassiopeian vomit reacts rather strangely with soap and water."

"It looks nice," Arthur said doggedly. "Although now you come to mention it, it _does_ smell quite overpoweringly of bad radishes."

"Thank you, I know. Zaphod's been avoiding me all evening. I can't say I'm heartbroken," Trillian sighed. "Who're your friends?"

"Oh sod. Sorry. Um, Trillian – Peter Marwood and Withnail who I believe _has_ a first name, he just won't tell anyone what it is." Arthur sighed as Withnail eyed him with equal amounts of animosity and jaundice. "I, er, um. I picked them up in Camden ."

Trillian raised her eyebrows. They had jewels in them, Arthur noticed, which meant he got to see his own reaction to her disapproval. "Really, Arthur, I didn't think you had it in you."

"What? No! Not like _that_."

Trillian gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I was just joking with you. Camden when, by the way? I thought the Vogons had put an embargo on reversing the disintegration? They're contesting the loophole in Galactic court, you know."

"The tail end of the sixties. It wasn't deliberate, Ford just had a bit of a … a … a conflagration with what turned out to be the time drive."

"Foom," Ford agreed from the floor. "Whoosh."

"If no one minds," Marwood said, "I'm going to get drunk now."

* * *

 

Arthur had succumbed to peer pressure and consumed more Ol' Janx Spirit and variations on Djinnuntohneeks than was strictly healthy, advisable or even physically possible, when the police actually _did_ raid the party.

"_Shit_," said Ford as the sirens went off.

Zaphod gave him a panicked look from under the table. "Are they after you, me, or those freaks you dragged here?"

"I don't _think_ they're after them," Ford said nervously, edging under the table beside Zaphod.

"So, either you or me."

"Yup."

"Time to beat a tactical retreat?"

"Looks that way, doesn't it?" Ford surveyed what was visible of the mostly-comatose party-goers. "You still have the Heart of Gold?"

"Of course," Zaphod said, poking a snoozing Trillian with his toe. "Say what you like about your bistromathics and your Shoe Shop Drives, there is _still_ only one Infinite Improbability Drive in the galaxy. Totally unique man."

"That's because there's only one person insane enough to use one," Ford retorted, trying and failing to lift Arthur out of a vast lake of pink dip. "Give me a hand here."

"Trillian, give Ford a hand with his monkey," Zaphod kicked Withnail in the ribs. "Anyway, I don't drive it, that mentally deficient computer does."

"Oh, you should have met the shipboard computer on the Simpson," Ford muttered, grabbing a handful of Marwood's jumper and trying to haul him to his feet. As Marwood – short though he undoubtedly was – was two inches taller than Ford and floppier than a basset hound, this was not an overwhelmingly successful attempt. "He made Eddie seem a pretty inviting prospect."

"Hey wow," Zaphod admitted, "that _is_ pretty bad."

"Do you know that the police are raiding your party?" Marvin trundled over the bodies of very, very drunk revellers and added, "I ask because you are still here, and you are all so impossibly stupid that you might not have noticed it."

"We're leaving," Zaphod said brightly. "Marvin, I need you to – "

"Stall them." Marvin barely paused. "I'm right, aren't I? Of course I'm right. You want me to hold back the entire Armed Recovery Division of the Imperial Galactic Police on my own."

"Pretty much," Zaphod agreed.

"Again."

"Yup." Zaphod shoved an unopened bottled into his trousers, which were so unseemly awful in their design that the resulting bulge made little difference to the overall eye-assault.

"With this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side."

"I'm not asking you to be _happy_ about it," Zaphod snapped. "Just keep them back."

"Good, because that really would be asking the impossible," Marvin said gloomily.

"Marvin used to be a hostage negotiator," Arthur told Marwood.

"He had a one hundred percent success rate," Trillian added.

"And a one hundred percent failure rate," Ford pointed out.

"Er, how?"

"Once the kidnappers had heard Marvin's philosophy on life they invariably committed suicide," Trillian explained. "But so did the hostages."

"I have a friend like that," Marwood muttered. "And I don't think 'friend' is really the right word."

"Here we are," Zaphod called. "Heart of Gold."

"We're not taking the Simpson?" Arthur asked Ford in some distress.

"It's probably been captured by now."

"But my _tea_ is on there," Arthur shouted, and began running back towards the hotel.

"Stop him – " Ford panted, without actually taking a step.

With surprising agility for one so ill-looking, Withnail flung himself at Arthur's legs and tackled him to the ground.

"Get _off_ me, you brute – my _tea_ -" Arthur squawked.

"Nuts to your tea," Zaphod said, shoving the door to the ship open with one of his shoulders.

"That's the only tea in the bloody _bloody_ galaxy," Arthur shouted. "Sod the police! I MUST HAVE MY TEA."

"Slap him," Zaphod suggested from the ship's doorway.

Ford scowled at him. "That never works."

"No, but it's funny."

"Look, Arthur," Marwood crouched beside the tangle of twitching limbs that made up an angry Arthur Dent and a restraining Withnail. "You can always get more tea when you drop me and Withnail back at home, can't you?"

Arthur went limp. There was a brief silence delineated only by the wail of sirens, the sound of laser-cannons being fired upon the hotel, and the tinny but carrying demands of the police (most of which amounted to their immediate and unconditional surrender of the fugitives, although who the fugitives _were_ was never mentioned).

"Alright," Arthur said quietly, getting up and brushing off his dressing-gown, "I may have been rather foolish."

"Fucker _bit_ me," Withnail complained to Marwood as they walked into the ship.

"It wasn't exactly a pleasant experience for me either," Arthur said. Withnail tasted like fermenting socks.

"You smell disgusting," Withnail added.

"Let me assure you that you smell infinitely worse," Arthur said stiffly. It was rather tempting to rejoinder swiftly with 'I've had your boyfriend' instead, but Withnail seemed the unpredictable and volatile sort, and Arthur had grown passionately fond of keeping his head attached to his shoulders via a sort of necky arrangement.

"Not that this hasn't been fun," said Marwood in a tone that suggested that it really, really hadn't, as the doors to the Heart of Gold slammed shut behind them and the engines fired up, "but I'm rather worried about leaving Danny alone in my flat. I want there to _be_ a flat when I get back. Is there any chance you could drop us back there soon?"

"Drop you off?" Zaphod asked over the intercom. "Hey man, not possible. The Heart of Gold does not come equipped with a time drive you know."

"… does … not …" Marwood sank slowly to his knees on the shiny floor and said, "Withnail, pass me that bottle."

"It's mine."

"I need it more than you do." He wrapped his arms around his head. "Are you seriously telling me I'm stranded in space with _fucking_ Withnail and a pack of – "

"Don't worry," Arthur said, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and earning himself a vicious glare from Withnail in the process. "You get used to it eventually."

"Do you?"

"On second thoughts," Arthur sighed, "no."


End file.
